


Rainbows Bring Out the Blooms

by lonelywalker



Category: The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:33:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Owen makes coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainbows Bring Out the Blooms

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Melville's "The Piazza".

Owen braced his hands against the cool, beveled edge of the hallway countertop and took in a long, deep breath.

He’d never made coffee here before, but he’d passed by the sink and short countertop beneath a spick-and-span cabinet, and Guert had made coffee for them both on a few occasions. It had been two weeks since the accident, since their kiss, since they began these curious homework sessions within Guert’s locked office. His cheek and jaw were still swollen and tender, although his headaches and concentration problems had mostly vanished, and nothing had made his head spin like the last few minutes.

Perhaps it was a bad idea to think about it now. Thinking about it made it more real, which would deepen his disappointment if it never happened again. Guert was in there at this very moment, seeming genuinely stunned, if not actually sickened…

Owen opened the cabinet and picked out two mugs from the cheerfully besloganed collection. He could leave. Maybe Guert wanted him to leave. It had certainly seemed, after that first kiss in a darkened kitchen, as though Guert preferred never to mention it again. But that had been something different. One gentle kiss that Owen couldn’t be sure Guert had responded to in the least. He still couldn’t be sure of much that had happened that evening: he’d gingerly got into bed and been knocked out instantly by painkillers and champagne. Had it really happened at all? 

He’d had fantasies about that sort of thing for… well, for years, but more vividly since he and Guert started their one-on-one meetings about environmental policy. Yet the next day he’d woken up late, his shoulder shaken by a concerned Henry, and found g.affenlight@westish.edu responding early to an e-mail Owen still didn’t remember sending: “Guert, Thank you for the lovely evening. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to read some course texts to me on occasion? I can’t focus on the pages and I don’t want to fall behind. Yours, O.” 

Well, he couldn’t leave. He could abandon his bag and pick it up tomorrow, but his shoes were still in there. There was no suggestion of walking back to Phumber in his socks. And besides, poor Guert. If Guert were already confused and troubled, how would Owen walking out on him feel? Yes, it would be hard if he didn’t want to do any of this again, but they were still friends, or at least Owen hoped they were.

And it wasn’t as if… Sure, Guert had spent two weeks without mentioning the kiss, without touching him, but Owen had been a little grateful for that. Asking Guert to read to him had never been a pretense, although it was a good excuse, and his head truly had hurt so badly during some of their meetings that he wasn’t sure he could have reciprocated in any meaningful way in any case. And he’d always known Guert was a gentleman. It was one of the things that made Guert so attractive (admittedly in addition to his striking good looks and vast knowledge and sharp wit and beautiful dress sense). But it wasn’t as if Guert hadn’t _wanted_ to. 

Owen realized he had his fingers to his lips and put his hand down again. But thoughts about milk and sugar dissipated into, well, those kisses. _Those_ kisses had been real and intentional and, okay, maybe Owen had been wrong to take it a step further with a man who’d spent two weeks between kisses, but there were only so many fortnights. Wasting another one seemed entirely futile, especially when Guert was kissing him like that, stroking his arm, getting visibly hard… Perhaps everything would have been fine if Owen could just open his mouth. Guert might still be confused about being blown by a man, but probably not _this_ confused. Then again, did Owen want to be one of those boys who sucked off closeted older men? Not really. Not if it wasn’t reciprocal. Not even if that closeted older man was Guert, and they were hardly two strangers fucking in a bathroom stall.

It might be for the best that Guert had done this now – and didn’t the fact he _had_ done it mean something? Better that he confront the reality of being attracted to someone who was a man and had a penis, than having some nebulous concept of Owen as… well, as something other than a man who had a penis.

Owen reached down, rubbed at said penis with the heel of his hand. It was dangerous to really think about it all now. Dangerous because he would get hard again, thinking about Guert’s mouth and tongue, the saliva that was still on him, the sight of himself in Guert’s mouth, the feel of Guert’s hair under his fingers, and the pure, bizarre reality of coming in _Guert Affenlight_ ’s mouth, as though Guert were some untouchable actor or rock star, or someone even more inconceivable than that. And Guert had done all of that, had got down on his knees without Owen even hinting that he should, had kissed and sucked and swallowed down Owen’s come, and really anything else about it, any failing in technique that could in any case be speedily rectified, paled in importance.

But now Guert was in there, looking genuinely pale and stricken, which was not a satisfying end to any fantasy. They’d kissed afterward, and Owen had thought there would be more kissing and he’d reach into Guert’s fly again and touch him and repay the favor… And now he didn’t know how it might end. He just didn’t want awkwardness and nausea to cap their weeks of flirtation.

The coffee machine whirred and clicked off.

They both took it black, as far as Owen knew, although he wondered if sugar or some other magical ingredient might help Guert feel better. In the end he simply dumped the steaming coffee into both mugs, took one in each hand, and nudged the door open with his socked toes.

It was almost seven, the office darkening along with the Quad beyond, and Guert was now standing at his desk, phone in one hand. Owen smiled softly. Whomever he was calling, at least he looked better.

Guert replaced the receiver. “I thought you’d gone,” he said. There was surprise there, but enveloped by relief. Relief that made Owen smile wider – at least as far as his jaw would let him – and push the door closed.

“Gone? Without my shoes?” He handed Guert one mug, brushing Guert’s wrist as he did so. How much of his own concerns had also passed through Guert’s mind? Or worse. He’d worried that Guert might be nauseous. Guert had apparently thought he’d actually fled the scene entirely. An idea occurred to him. “Should we have a cigarette?”

There was that relief again, this time in one of those charming smiles that couldn’t help but endear Guert to anyone who saw them. Guert sipped from his mug and set it down on the edge of his desk before patting his coat pockets. “Smoking in the parlor is expressly prohibited.”

Owen sat back down on the love seat. “Is this the parlor?” He’d only seen Guert smoking once or twice, both times by the lake, when Guert was probably unaware that anyone could see him, but it seemed appropriate now, after sex, and with Guert badly needing to calm down, or at least restore himself to some kind of normality. 

“Let’s pretend it’s not, for the time being.” Guert’s cigarettes were Parliaments, and he lit one before handing it to Owen.

“Shall we share?” Owen suggested. It was something he was better used to with joints, but sharing anything was nice.

Guert smiled, set down the packet and lighter, and joined him on the love seat. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“My pleasure.” Owen took a draw on the cigarette, leaned back and turned his head toward Guert. “Are you feeling better?”

Guert nodded without looking at him, touching the cigarette to his lips. “Much.” He leaned back too, and took Owen’s free hand, fingers interlacing.

“We don’t have to…” Owen hesitated. It was usually so easy to remain cool and even somewhat aloof with Guert, because one really had to be, to attempt to be on equal terms with a sixty-year-old college president. Now he felt stupidly young, the way he’d felt two years ago with Jason. Which would have been terrifying, given all the possibility for heartbreak, if Guert didn’t seem just as stupidly young and vulnerable too. “I enjoy our talks. If you’d prefer…”

“Shhh.” 

“I mean it. I don’t want you to feel obliged…”

Guert set his mug down on the chair he’d been sitting on before. “I enjoy our talks too. I used to think it was enough, just seeing you across a room or ballpark, and then that it was enough to talk to you. And until today, I thought… I thought it might be enough just to touch you sometimes, or kiss you.”

He turned, drawing one knee up onto the cushion. “I won’t be able to think that anymore.”

“So…” Owen gently took the cigarette from him. “What does that mean?”

Guert licked his lips. “I… I guess I wasn’t very good, a few minutes ago. But I can probably get better. If you can bear teaching me.”

“If I can _bear_ you sucking me off?”

“I know there are a lot of kids out there…” Guert’s forehead creased as he met Owen’s eyes. “You’re so beautiful. And I’m… I’ve never done any of this before.”

Owen had the sudden urge to pull him up off the couch and suggest that they go upstairs right now, to where they might find not only alcohol but the big, soft bed that surely Guert had secreted in one of those rooms off the hallway… Except Pella was probably there, or at least might be there, and any more stimulation than this would short out Guert’s brain a second time. Still, it was nice to think some more about Guert’s body underneath his tailored shirts and pants. Not a model’s body, but slim and warm and possessed of, from what Owen had seen, a reasonably impressive penis.

“I’ve got a lot more homework,” Owen said. “Perhaps you could bear our talks for a few more weeks.”

“Of course,” Guert said.

“And perhaps tomorrow you could try that new skill again. And perhaps I’ll bring some lubricant so I can feel all of you, too.”

Guert took the cigarette back from him, studying it as though it was the most fascinating item he’d ever discovered. “O… While you were in the hospital, I was in your room, looking for your glasses.”

“I know. Henry told me. The two of you managed to saturate my rug with dairy products. The hilarity of that image did, however, more than make up for the necessary cleaning. Particularly since I made Henry do it, on account of my head. But you were saying?”

“I saw something on your computer screen. A complete accident, of course. I would _never_ invade your-”

Owen smiled. “It was porn, wasn’t it?”

“…yes.”

“Henry plays too much Tetris.”

They’d never been so close for so long before, close enough that Owen could take in the deep gray of Guert’s eyes, his eyelashes, the silver strands woven through his hair… And oh, if he was fixating on a guy’s eyelashes, some kind of shield had already cracked within him.

Owen stood up, taking a gulp of coffee and, after one last draw, stubbing out the cigarette in the remaining fluid. “I’m not exclusively attracted to nude models,” he said. “If you were worried.”

“I was, a little.”

At some point they’d crossed over from being neighbors with a vague acquaintance, or from student and president, to friends. Which somehow, more than anything, made all of this okay.

He slid onto Guert’s lap, which he hadn’t done with anyone since Jason, and which Jason hadn’t enjoyed much, and cupped Guert’s upturned face and kissed him.

Whatever taste there had been of himself before had already been submerged in tobacco and coffee, but there was still Guert’s tongue and lips, and Guert’s hands at the small of his back, drawing him closer, and the crotch of Owen’s martial arts pants rubbing against Guert’s in a way that might be interesting to investigate further tomorrow.

“Does it still hurt so badly?” Guert asked. His fingertips hovered a careful inch from Owen’s cheek.

“It’s been worse.”

Guert cupped the back of his head, where the swelling had already healed, and brought Owen’s face close to his again. The kiss was still a careful one, but it spoke of days ahead in which they might not have to be so careful.

“I have to go,” Owen said, “or I’ll miss dinner entirely.”

He slipped on his shoes, pulling the strap of his messenger bag across his body while Guert watched him over the lip of a coffee mug. Would anyone believe him, if he told them this? (Not that he was going to tell anyone.) Not only what had happened, but how it had happened. Guert was no fantasy man on a computer screen, but then Owen had never made coffee for any nude models.

He tousled the hair of his college president and kissed him on the forehead. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.


End file.
